The present application relates to high speed file access for educational testing.
The advent of media rich digital content is changing the face of Internet applications. Various applications such as training and education require users to access media contents such as photographs, streaming audio and video, and training materials. Rich media streaming involves various types of media such as audio, video, text, and/or images.
For example, FIG. 1 shows an exemplary web application to client communication process for educational applications from Let's Go Learn. Content is streamed from an originating server 10 such as a server from an educational system called Let's Go Learn (www.letsgolearn.com). The content is streamed over a wide area network such as the Internet 12 to an end-user Internet connection point 20. The connection point 20 is in turn connected to a local area network (LAN) 21 and a plurality of user workstations 22 are connected to the LAN 21 to receive training materials originating from the server 10.
Media streaming involves various network conditions with different bandwidths and delays. In streaming, a receiving device reproduces sound or video in real time as the signal is downloaded over the Internet, as opposed to storing the signal in a local file first. A plug-in to a Web browser, such as Netscape Navigator, decompresses and plays the data as it is transferred to a personal computer over the Internet. Streaming audio or video avoids the delay entailed in downloading an entire file and then reproducing it with a helper application. Streaming requires a fast connection and a computer with sufficient processing capability to execute the decompression algorithm in real-time.
Computer networks, such as the Internet, now carry data for multimedia applications, which are particularly latency-sensitive, or vulnerable to delay. For example, a delay experienced during the transmission of video data interrupts the video enjoyment experience. In contrast, a delay in downloading a Web page is less problematic to the user. Conversely, voice transmission requires less bandwidth (bits per second) than receiving a Web page, for example, but does require an uninterrupted amount of bandwidth.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,671,732 discloses a method and an apparatus for tagging rich media content so that receivers of electronic information on electronic networks can specify content preferences. The transmission of content is controlled by the setting of priorities by the user, according to different forms of content, and then the system deletes content beginning with that of lowest priority. Content can be deleted because of poor communication conditions, or proactively to effectively highlight aspects of the communicated information in conformance to the desires of the user.